Tracing history of 'cool' in US

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THIS story from the Los Angeles Times traces the culture of "cool" in the US and highlights many US cultural symbols, which are explained in the "Notes" column.

Forget about red state versus blue state, Prius versus Hummer, Wall Street versus Main Street. The real choice facing Americans this election year is much simpler: cool or hot?

Let me explain. About 60 years ago, in a club in New York, Bebop jazz was born and soon followed by its close cousin, beatnik culture. Together, they forged a new attitude that would define popular culture in the second half of the American century. That attitude, of course, was cool, and it has come back to haunt us this season.

Senator Barack Obama, according to conventional wisdom, is Mr Ice. Calm under fire, slow to anger, he appears to have a wise, thoughtful coolness. At the opposite, Senator John McCain is frequently depicted as Mr Hothead. His righteous, passionate convictions could either lead to his accomplishing a lot of tasks in the White House or, some fear, to showing his destructive side.
So who will prevail? You might say cool and hot are codependents who need each other. But at least since World War II, it's been cool, not hot, that has been ascendant.

Grace under pressure
"Cool" relates to notions of having grace under pressure. Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson traced "cool" back to the philosophies of 15th century West African peoples. "In Africa," he wrote, "coolness is an all-embracing positive attribute which combines notions of composure, silence, vitality and social purification."

In the US, "cool" has been primarily associated with African American culture. In "Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America", published in 1992, Richard Majors and Janet Mancini Billson described "cool" as "the presentation of self many black males use to establish their male identity".

But "cool" couldn't truly become "cool" without "hot". When Beboppers and the Beats invented post-World War II "cool", they were rebelling against what they viewed as the strict social rules of the time.

As sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins wrote in "Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude": "Post-war ‘cool' was at least in part an expression of war-weariness, and it rejected ‘hot' nationalistic ideals in favor of a detached attitude."

Refusing to conform
The Beats and Beboppers turned their backs on suburban conformity and nationalism. Soon, even ordinary people were beginning to adopt their style. "By the 1950s, whites wanted to be cool too," Pountain and Robins wrote. Even Snoopy donned sunglasses. As "cool" grew into mainstream, it became more divisive. It was embraced by the 1960s counterculture. And during the 1970s and 1980s, "cool" became associated with lawlessness and violence.

That triggered a conservative cultural backlash and allowed politicians such as Richard Nixon to claim that the cool kids were really out of touch with ordinary people.

Some McCain supporters are taking a similar tack. They try to connect Obama with the counterculture past of "cool" by pointing to his brief association with Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers, a man who was allegedly behind some terror activity in the US.

Will McCain's backers succeed in painting Obama as a secret red-hot troublemaker? "Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice," wrote poet Robert Frost. That's American culture, forever running hot and cool.

Culture notes: Walking from ‘Wall Street' to ‘Main Street'
red state & blue state: terms that refer to the political majority of a particular state. Red states are those with a majority of Republican Party supporters. Blue states are those with a majority of Democratic Party supporters.

Prius (普锐斯) & Hummer (悍马): Prius, the first hybrid car (混合动力车) designed by Toyota, has become a symbol of green culture. Hummers, known for their heavy consumption of fuel, have become a symbol of waste.

Wall Street & Main Street: Wall Street refers to the stock market and to those Americans who make their livelihoods by trading stocks. Main Street refers to everyone else – ordinary Americans who work regular jobs and raise families.

Bebop jazz: It is an American musical form that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the southern US. In the early 1940s, it developed into danceable music that used faster tempos (节拍). Bebopper: a person who enjoys Bebop

beatnik culture: A US cultural movement in the 1950s that rejected mainstream American values. Instead, it embraced anti-materialism and stressed the importance of bettering one's inner self. The stereotypical beatnik look involved men wearing goatees (山羊胡) and berets (贝雷帽), rolling their own cigarettes and playing Bebop music. Women often wore black leotards (紧身连衣裤) and kept their hair unadorned to rebel against the middle-class popularity of beauty salons.

Beats: (垮掉的一代) Beats, or the Beat Generation, were people who were influenced by beatnik culture and, thus, carried its ideas.

suburban conformity: The US suburbs are often seen as places where traditional American values like family and patriotism are alive and well. Suburban conformists are those who embrace this lifestyle.

生词：
anatomy 剖析
ascendant 上升的
attribute 属性, 特征
backlash 强烈反对
codependent [k] 互相依存的
composure 镇静
conviction 深信
counterculture 反传统
detached 冷漠的
haunt 困扰
passionate 充满激情的
righteous 正直的

BONUS
Expressions
don
穿上
She donned her finest dress for the party last evening.
昨晚的聚会上，她穿了她最漂亮的衣服。

forge使形成，造就
The sharp income gap forged the poor's hatred of the rich.
巨大的收入差距促使穷人仇视富人。

tack
行动方针，策略
Some small export companies are changing their tack and trying to expand their domestic market.
一些小外贸公司改变了策略，转而开发国内市场。